It was a pardon-our-progress moment for Common Roots inside the housing nonprofit’s Liberty Street headquarters last week: Furniture destined for a storage area adjacent to the office was temporarily taking up much of the office, and the steady roar of a power sander alternated with a wet-dry vacuum cleaner in the background as renovations continued.
At the front of the office, Carlin Gingerich and Julie Wilson arranged poster boards showing the organization’s most ambitious proposal: the transformation of two long-blighted Meadville commercial properties into affordable townhomes for working-class families.
An architectural rendering showed what the development might look like: six attached homes in bright colors, each with a sidewalk leading to a few steps that take visitors to a porch area. The image is eye-catching enough to have attracted comments from visitors to the office.
“They all think, “Oh, it’s a little too beach house-ish,’” Gingerich said last week. “So we thought, well, we might put different siding on them and change a little bit of the aesthetics, but the shape may stay more or less the same — they are trying to be somewhat reasonably priced.”
The double windows at the center of each residence’s top floor would also likely be replaced by two separate windows, Gingerich continued, “because that’s how Meadville looks.”
Just a few months ago, debates over siding and window placement for a project that was years — and millions of dollars — away from becoming reality may have seemed like wishful thinking, but support from Sen. John Fetterman has changed things.
Common Roots’ plan to build six three-bedroom townhomes at 778-780 Water St., site of the former Humphrey’s Master Cleaners Inc. and Jones Plumbing and Heating Inc., was designated to receive $1.5 million in Fetterman’s recently submitted Congressionally Directed Spending Award requests. In a list of 70 appropriation requests for transportation, housing and urban development projects that included dozens in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas, it was the only Crawford County project.
Being selected sends a clear message, according to Wilson.
“It’s not a pipe dream,” she said. “Having that commitment allows us to leverage that to other (funding) applications.”
Common Roots’ approach was part of what made the project appealing to Fetterman. After construction, the proposed townhomes would become part of the organization’s community land trust. While the land would be owned by the trust, the homes themselves could then be sold to low- to moderate-income families in a program similar to the one involving several Prospect Street homes that is currently being launched by Common Roots, Allegheny College and ERIEBANK.
“When I ran for this seat, I promised to fight for places across the commonwealth that have been left behind and forgotten,” Fetterman said. “Meadville is one of those places. Communities all across Pennsylvania — from large cities like Philadelphia to smaller communities like Meadville — are facing a housing crisis. This funding, and the CLT model that the federal dollars would support, can help communities address this crisis head on.”
More will be needed than the spending request from Fetterman to make the vision of townhomes where decaying buildings recently stood a reality: Early estimates put the total project cost at between $2 million and $3 million, but Gingerich said limiting the cost to $2.5 million or lower was essential for maintaining the affordability of the homes.
For an organization that has a budget of approximately $1.2 million for 2024, the progress is significant.
Just a few months ago, few would have envisioned anything house-ish, let alone “beach house-ish” emerging from the side-by-side abandoned properties on upper Water Street. Before their demolition in March, the decaying buildings had been “a pain point for decades,” according to a letter of support the Meadville Redevelopment Authority (RDA) submitted to Fetterman.
Humphrey’s Master Cleaners, the last occupant of 780 Water St., was dissolved in February 2001, according to Pennsylvania Department of State records that also indicate the business existed as least as early as 1960. The property at 778 Water St. was last occupied by Jones Plumbing until approximately 2017. Prior to its use as a plumbing business, the location had served as a gas station.
Within a few years, six working-class families enrolled in Common Roots’ shared equity home ownership program could be living there. The concept designs Gingerich displayed last week show three bedrooms and a bath on the top floor of each home, with a living room-dining area-kitchen and a half-bath on the main level. Below is a spacious one-car garage that would be accessible only from the rear of the downward sloping property.
The idea of newly built homes in a convenient location was particularly appealing to Renna Wrubleski, the city’s community development director, who expected the townhomes to prove appealing to potential future tenants.
“Everything you could need is all within walking distance or very short driving distance,” Wrubleski said. “Plus the new construction will probably be nicer than a lot of the older homes a lot of us are living in.”
The plan outlined by the RDA in its letter of support calls for the authority to complete environmental remediation of the two Water Street lots next year, after which title to the property will be conveyed to Common Roots, according to Wrubleski. Next year, Common Roots will begin construction of three duplexes in the same block of Water Street and construction of the townhomes could begin in early 2026, depending on additional funding.
The partnership with RDA played an important role in securing the funding request from Fetterman, Wilson said, as did other municipal efforts, such as Meadville Planning Commission’s designation of upper Water Street as a redevelopment area and the housing action plan adopted by Meadville City Council in March.
Such efforts pave the way for support from state and federal sources, according to Gingerich.
“There is a fair bit of money available from different funds and sources to do housing work,” he said, “and they tend to all really like when the government and locality has a good plan in place for what they want to have happen — and then the funding sources are happy to step in and help make it happen if the plan’s in place.”
Source: The Meadville Tribune